Water soluble perfume oils can often be used for perfuming clear, aqueous or low-percentage alcoholic cosmetics, such as toilet water and shaving and hair lotions. The majority of the ethereal perfumes, perfume oils, and aromatic substances are oil-soluble products, which can be made to stable, clear, aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic solutions only by the addition of what are known as solubilizers. It is already known to use different solubilizers for solubilizing oil-soluble products, such as monofatty acid esters of polyols, examples of which include sorbitol monostearate and various ethylene oxide adducts, such as polyethoxylated castor oil.
A significant drawback of the presently used solubilizers is that relatively large amounts of additives are required to solubilize the desired and/or necessary amounts of perfume oils into a stable, aqueous or low-percentage alcohol solution. Another drawback is that their solubilizing action is mostly very specific and extends only to a limited number of perfume oils.
The problem of finding solubilizers which can in small amounts solubilize a large number of different perfume oils in the desired and necessary concentration to a clear, stable, aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic solution, had already been solved by the use of hydroxyalkylether ethoxylates, as described in German Published Application (DOS) 27 31 218. Although the hydroxyalkylether ethoxylates described in that reference have excellent solubilizing properties for perfume oils, they leave much to be desired as far as their processing capacity is concerned, due to their consistency and partial non-homogeneity, and the products must be melted and homogenized before use.
The problem has therefore been to find solubilizers which have all the application properties of the hydroxyalkylether ethoxylates and which are also clear, liquid, easily processable products, so that stable, aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic solutions of fat-soluble perfume oils may be prepared without any difficulties.